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SYDNEY - Australian media fumed as Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh's escape from charges of racial vilification dominated the front pages of newspapers today.
"Cricket's day of shame," blared the Sydney Morning Herald's lead headline.
"Cricket caves in to India's demands," The Australian said on its front page.
Harbhajan's three-match ban, issued by International Cricket Council (ICC) match referee Mike Procter for allegedly calling Australian Andrew Symonds a "monkey", was overturned on an appeal heard by New Zealand High Court judge John Hansen in Adelaide's Federal Court yesterday.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported Cricket Australia pressured its players to drop the racism (level three) charges against Harbhajan for a lesser (level two) offence of abusive language.
Hansen found Harbhajan guilty on that charge, which carried a penalty of half his match fee from the second test in Sydney, about A$3000 ($3470).
The Hindustan Times in India reported Harbhajan testified he said "teri maa ki" to Symonds, understood to be an insult in Hindi, during their heated exchange in Sydney.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had chartered a plane to take its players home immediately, abandoning the upcoming tri-series with Sri Lanka, if the three-match ban was not overturned.
"Cricket Australia was anxious to have the charge dropped because it feared its board would be sued for a figure understood to be about A$60 million if India quit the tour," the report said.
India's broadcast partner, ESPN, owns the lucrative contract to beam cricket from Australia into the subcontinent.
An unnamed Australian player told the Herald: "The thing that pisses us off is it shows how much power India has."
Columnist Peter Roebuck said the BCCI's chartering of a plane to whisk its players home if the case was lost was "one of the most nakedly aggressive actions taken in the history of a notoriously fractious game".
"If this is the way the Indian board intends to conduct its affairs hereafter then God help cricket," Roebuck wrote.
The Australian's lead story was equally outraged.
"India, the team that bleated about the spirit of cricket after being beaten in Sydney, has again held a gun to the game's head and had its demands met."
Hansen has not yet explained his decision publicly.
The one thing counting in Harbhajan's favour was the lack of any audio evidence of him calling Symonds a monkey.
Channel Nine released audio from the stump microphones where Symonds was heard telling Harbhajan: "You called me a monkey again", and Matthew Hayden chiming in that he had a witness to his "racial vilification".
The umpires didn't hear the word "monkey" being used and Indian great Sachin Tendulkar, batting with Harbhajan at the time, also testified he didn't hear the word used.
- NZPA
